A simple vignette scene sparked by a conversation I was having the other day with my friend (and ally!) Clio1792. We were on a bit of a frolic for the purposes of characterization, and this is what resulted. It was my idea, but she wrote half of it - so if you like this fic, please remember to thank her! (and if you don't like it - blame me! (^_^)
Enjoy!
Ladies' Day
It was Lady Portales' most successful fete of the summer. All the brilliant people were there, and the war was keeping all of the depressing foreigners to a distinct minimum.
Sir Percy had, most surprisingly, arrived early. It was not surprising that he had flouted fashion in this manner, but truly it was shocking that he had deigned to come at all. More and more often, recently, Lady Blakeney was the only member of his household to be seen at the more select parties. But still, he was there, even more fashionable and fussy than ever, inanely entertaining and foppishly vapid.
The more romantically inclined set of young people present gave an inward sigh - how could Lady Blakeney be so infatuated with such a fool, and why must Blakeney be so obviously enamored with his wife? It simply was not fair.
And more importantly, it wasn't fashionable.
A pleasantly long game of croquet was introduced - a game at which Marguerite Blakeney excelled. When the round was well along, Sir Percy left her side - he was bored, no doubt - and he went to the refreshment table to pour himself a long glass of iced punch.
Was it chance or design that Lord Antony Dewhurst had become bored with his game of ninepins at the same moment as Sir Percy. . .? No one but they themselves could have told you, but be that however it may, they were nonetheless at the punchbowl at the same time.
"How do, Tony, m'lad?" Sir Percy drawled in his usual manner.
"All well, Blakeney," Tony said, lazily, for the day was hot, "And I hope. . ."
A sudden flash in his leader's eyes cut off Tony's next words - he was forever forgetting to put proper rein on his enthusiasm for the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel - but Percy had long learned how to control Tony's exuberance. In public anyway.
"Just so, my friend," Blakeney whispered, almost inaudibly. Hope away. I need you, Tony, to be in France by Thursday, June the 18th."
Tony gasped, "But that Thursday is the Ascot Gold Cup! And it's Ladies Day! You cannot be serious, Percy."
"I can," said Blakeney, blandly, "And perhaps you wouldn't mind explaining the intricacies of the Ascot Races to the Duc de Elanderre and all his ladies. . . he has four daughters. . . whom you will be saving."
Tony's eyes lit up.
Across the party field, Marguerite was thinking, as she turned a deceptively casual eye at her husband and Lord Tony by the punch table, "ah. . . they are plotting again. He's not even mine on the croquet field."
She turned her attention to Lady Portales, who was stepping toward her with the prancing gait that Marguerite and Percy had privately agreed remined them a bit of a horse. Lady Portales had a strong jaw, and buck teeth, which rather completed the notion.
"Marrrrguuerriitte," Lady Portales said, stretching her syllables in the annoying manner that was her wont, "I vow your husband and Lord Dewhurst are verrrrrily the most fashhhhionable men in London!! What a pretttttty picture they make by the punch bowllll,"
"Indeed," Marguerite remarked drily. "I was just thinking the same thing myself."
Over at the punch table, Percy and Lord Tony were continuing to chat with a demeanor that was meant to suggest that neither of them had a care in the world, though they were discussing matters of life and death.
"I'll want you to go to the home of our friend in Paris," Percy was explaining to Tony, "I'll need you and Glynde dressed, I think, as chicken-sellers,"
"Chicken sellers!?" Lord Tony cried, under his breath.
At a warning look from Percy, he smiled with an insincerity that barely disguised his consternation. "Percy, the last time you asked me to assume that disguise, I smelled like fowl for a week! Couldn't we be woodcutters again? Or, perhaps," Lord Tony suggested hopefully, "smiths?"
"You need the smell, Tony," Percy reminded him, mentally counseling himself to be patient. Lord Anthony was so young, so enthusiastic, and so...stupid, at times. "It is your protection," Percy continued. "We can't afford for some horseman to stop you, imagining you a smith, and demand your services!" He laughed aloud now, and clapped Tony on the back, saying, loud enough for others to hear, "What a demmed marvelous joke, Tony!! You are a genius when you open your mouth, my man!! An utter devil with humor!"
Percy was laughing volubly enough so that Tony was obliged to join in, although privately, the young lordling could not restrain himself from wondering if the four daughters of the Duc de Elanderre enjoyed the smell of raw chicken. Truly, he doubted it, of course. The last time he had been assigned an odiferous disguise, the men and women he had helped to rescue did nothing but hold perfumed handkerchiefs to their collective noses, and reluctantly follow the lifesaving but equally smelly orders he had to give.
"I do hope, Percy," he said quietly, but gesturing as though he were speaking of nothing very important, "That this time you won't be telling the ladies to dress in frocks stained with chicken blood!"
"Better a chicken's blood than their own, my lad, and you will remind them of this, if need be," Percy said, tossing off his punch at one go, "But fortunately, the plan for this rescue was devised by a head much lovelier than either of ours." And so saying, Sir Percy filled another glass with iced punch, and strode swiftly back across the playing field, leaving Tony quite bewildered.
"A much needed refreshment for you, m'dear!" Sir Percy said, offering the glass to his wife as though this were the only reason he had been at the punchbowl, "Who's winning?" he asked, loud enough for the Prince to take notice (and, incidentally, loud enough to interrupt Lady Hastings fortuitous croquet), "I do hope 'tis yourself, m'dear, Lord Tony and I have thirty guineas riding upon it."
"Have you bet for me, or against me, Sir?" asked Lady Blakeney, blithely, causing all the other young ladies present to giggle in the most charming manner.
"You had better ask Tony, m'dear, for the whole thing was his idea," Percy drawled lazily, "and perhaps you can explain to him. . ."
"Margueriiiiiiite!!!!" twittered Lady Portales, "`Tis your turn!"
"Very well!" said Marguerite, her eyes sparkling as she turned back to the game, realizing that she would need to talk to Lord Tony before the day was out. Perhaps he was having difficulty accepting her plan. . . .
Meanwhile, Tony was wondering, as he watched Percy and Marguerite spar on the croquet field, what precisely Percy had meant by "a lovelier head?"
Had Lady Blakeney really devised a plan to engineer a rescue?
Lord Tony knew, of course, that Percy had taken up the habit of inviting his wife into more and more of his confidence since the two had become reconciled the previous year. He watched, now, as Marguerite swung her mallet a ball and struck home with a triumphant click. She turned her laughing face up into Percy's. The answering look of tenderness on Percy's face was unmistakable.
Tony felt a stir of envy that he told himself was irritation. Blakeney's wife might be "the cleverest woman in Europe," but she was a woman, for heaven's sake. She wasn't a League member, to plan a rescue! It really was deucedly irritating, the way the chief had suddenly been turned into a pillar of uxorial sentimentality! And why should he be condemned to don such a disguise when Andrew, or Hastings, would undoubtedly be allowed to do something far more dashing, like wait with the horses outside Paris? Of course, now that Andrew was married to Suzanne, Tony began to sulk, he'd probably never be asked to do anything so unsavory as pose as a chicken-seller!
Lost in such sullen thoughts, Tony heard Marguerite laugh again, as she handed her mallet to Percy with an artful curtsy. Percy said something in reply--Tony was too distracted by his own thoughts to have heard it distinctly-but then he saw Marguerite look over at him, and meet his gaze with an odd look of amusement and concern on her face.
And then suddenly, Lady Blakeney was walking toward him.
"Lord Tony," Marguerite said, as she reached the punch table, "I trust you will be able to claim thirty guineas from my husband as recompense for your skill in picking a winner?"
Confronted, thus, with the object of his chief's affection, Lord Tony could only stammer. "I assure you, Lady Blakeney," he finally managed, "I would never doubt your skill on the croquet field!"
"Ah," Marguerite said, now speaking more softly, "but you doubt my discernment in other matters, do you not?" And now she took pity on her husband's devoted comrade-in-arms, as she turned toward the punch bowl to shield her face from prying eyes, and lowered her voice. "And yet it seems to me that four, terrified young girls, who have been hiding on a farm on the outskirts of Paris for the last two months, disguised as milkmaids, and chicken keepers, will be exquisitely grateful for the news you will bring them that rescue is close at hand....or do you, " and now she turned to smile genuinely, almost tenderly, at her husband's young friend, "lack the stomach to carry such a hopeful message?"
Tony's face brightened considerably, but he lowered his voice, "It is not the message, Lady Blakeney, I assure you, that distresses me. . . THAT, as in all things which - " he gave a surruptitious glance about, and lowered his voice even more, "Which we, as a league of friends do - I am in perfect accord." Tony drew himself up, "It is not even, truly, the fact that my disguise will be less than fashionable. . ." here Lord Tony gave a most approved flick of his wrist to adjust the lace frill of his jacket, "It is, in fact, Lady Blakeney. . . that I. . . well. . ." Inexplicably, Tony blushed, and trailed off.
"You may confide in me, Antony," said Marguerite, gently, realizing that this went far beyond disguises and vague notions of the inferiority of female adventuresomeness and planning. "You may forget that I am French, and you WILL forget that I have once betrayed my husband - you will remember only that I may not be the Scarlet Pimpernel, but without me the Scarlet Pimpernel would surely be dead, and you would have no leader for your adventures."
"Yes," said Tony, more seriously and soberly than was his wont, "And for that you have my undying gratitude, Lady Blakeney, but. . . you see. . . it is not so much the task that Percy sets for me. . . it is the. . . timing."
"The timing, Lord Tony?" Marguerite laughed, slightly sarcastically, "Are you such an ardent sportsman that giving up one race at Ascot will seriously dampen your spirits?" Tony looked abashed. "Or is it," Marguerite went on, "That it is Ladies Day? Hmm? Is there is one particular lady you wish to escort? Or is it several?"
"No," said Tony, even more mortified, "I want to take my mother. . ."
Marguerite's eyes widened. Tony dropped her arm, and looked away from her.
"I have missed these last two years, Lady Blakeney, and mother is nearing seventy. . ."
Tony said no more, and Marguerite was silent for quite some time.
Lord Dewhurst, quite unused to sentiment, and even more discomfited by this quiet, realistic side of Lady Blakeney's manner, tentatively retook her arm, and led a gentle walk in a wide arc around the party grounds. He broke the silence, some minutes later. "May I ask. . . Madame. . . out of pure curiosity, what hand you had in this plan? Percy is quite capable in planning, and I have never known him to need. . . ad-advice. . .from. . ."
"From a woman, Lord Tony?" said Marguerite, firmly.
"Well. . . yes," said Tony, reluctantly, his sheepish look only intensifying the awkardness of the moment.
Marguerite laughed, dispelling some of the tension, "I only mentioned to Percy that it would be more pleasant for four young women to travel dressed as young women - rather than the soldiers and boys you usually try to dress them up as - and I noted that I had often seen bands of gypsies and other such groups that had women in them - why not try to save a modicum of the young girls' modesty and escort them dressed as they were meant to be - as girls." She looked askance at Lord Tony, "A very meagre suggestion, I am sure, but Percy seems to have taken some inspiration from it."
Lord Tony fought back the most irrational feelings of jealousy. For Percy to have a woman like this. . . a woman who inspired him! Inspired the Pimpernel!. . . and for Andrew to be happily married to the sweetest girl any of them had ever met. . . and for himself to have no one. . . and furthermore be to denied the one day he had been planning on for months. . . to be with the one woman who he was sure of in this world. . . For the first time in all his months in the League, Tony questioned the wisdom of his actions.
"Lady Blakeney," he said, respectfully, "How do you cope with it all?"
Marguerite looked archly at Tony and laughed. "With a poor equanimity," she replied. "And, often," Marguerite added, "less graciousness than you have shown in the face of orders that disoblige you so seriously." Marguerite studied Lord Tony, now, searching his countenance. "Would you like me to mention this to Percy, Antony?"
"I'm no child," Tony replied, drawing himself up a bit, "to hide behind a woman's skirts. I do not require you to intercede for me, Lady Blakeney."
"All the same..." Marguerite began, but then looked up to see the subject of their conversation, her husband, striding toward them.
"Well, Tony," Percy began, in evidently high humor, "are you ready to join our game then?"
Marguerite surveyed the two men and looked meaningfully at Percy. "I believe Lord Tony would like to raise the stakes," she announced, smiling at both men. "For myself, I believe I am thirsty enough to fetch myself another draught of punch."
Percy's eyes trailed after his wife, as he watched her step gracefully across the grass, but his mind was all on his companion, and the plans he wished to further discuss. "Well, Tony," he said, "are you prepared, now, to don your disguise?"
Lord Tony looked down at his feet a minute, drawing a breath for courage to steer past his embarrassment. And then he brought it out in a voice low but filled with a gravity and purpose that might have astonished many of those who thought of him only as a mindless, heartless, fop. "I have explained to Lady Blakeney that I wished to escort my mother on the 18th of June," Lord Tony began. "I am her only son," he continued, "my father's heir, and it is an honor I have promised to do her, and failed to fulfill, these two years past. I know I have promised, with no less sincerity, to obey you in all things, Percy," he finished. "But I ask for this one favor, to be released from this adventure that I may do my duty as a son."
Percy looked out onto the level grass of the croquet field about them, then dropped his eyes as he played, idly, with the lace about his jacket. He had known so little of his own mother, he thought. And yet, in the last year, he had learned what it was to cherish a woman, to feel the weight of love not merely as temptation but as an obligation.
He looked up, then, and into his old friend's eyes. "If we left today, m'boy, I believe we could rescue the Duc de Elanderre and his four lovely daughters by week's end. And you could be back by next Thursday. It might carry a bit more risk," Percy went on, narrowing his eyes, "but accelerating our plans a bit might make the danger of betrayal less likely. . ." his voice trailed off, and then he offered the final challenge: "Would that suit you?"
Lord Tony let out a breath he had not even realized he'd been holding, and looked up into the kindly face of his leader with a mixture of gratitude and awe. "I daresay it would, Percy."
"Well, then," Percy said, clapping his old friend on the back. "Give me a minute," he said.
With the air of insouciance that he invariably affected in public gatherings, he sauntered to Marguerite, who was enduring another conversation with Lady Portales. "Madam!" he announced. "Lord Tony has informed me that a run of new fabrics have arrived in London! An extraordinary collection!! We must away to see them, or we'll have nothing whatever to be properly outfitted," and here Percy flourished a bit, for emphasis, "for the Ascot Gold Cup!"
For a split second, there was a flash of sadness in Marguerite's eyes. It cut through her husband's heart, but he was no less careful than she to disguise it. "I kiss your lovely hands, Madam!" he said, taking up Marguerite's hands in his.
To the assembled throng, it might have looked as if Sir Percy Blakeney went on merely to plant ostentatious kisses upon the back of his wife's hands. They did not see the gentle caress he gave her wrists, nor hear the words of loving farewell, murmured under his breath.
Marguerite watched her husband's departing back, together with Lord Tony's, as the two men strode off to collect Sir Andrew, and gain the courtyard where a carriage would be waiting to take them to Dover and the danger that lay beyond. When they retreating forms could no longer be seen, she turned to Lady Portales.
"Yourrrr husbandddd is such a slave to fassshionnn, Lady Blakeney," Lady Portales declared. "It fairrrrly takes my breath awayyyy!"
"No less than my own," Marguerite replied, with an ironic smile. And then, lifting a brow at the humor of a joke that only she understood, she turned to face her hostess.
"And so, my Lady Portales," Marguerite asked, "whatever shall we wear for the Ascot Gold Cup? It will, after all, be Lady's Day." And now Marguerite smiled. "We must do justice to the occasion!